


Inherit the World

by mogwai_do



Series: Family Matters [2]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mycroft Holmes-centric, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18718057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: A young Mycroft Holmes, his star already in the ascendant, takes some personal time because grief doesn't wait and family is complicated.





	Inherit the World

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a 'verse I've had in my head and on scraps for years. I don't know that I'll get around to finishing the other parts or putting more of it out there, but this seemed complete enough to stand alone.
> 
> It's years pre the Sherlock series; in Highlander it's after Bordeaux. Some knowledge of the Highlander 'verse would help, but is probably not essential.

Mycroft looked down at the still form of his father; he'd heard it said that dead people often looked like they were merely asleep, but even if he discounted the obvious line of the cut that had killed him, his father still looked dead. For the first time in Mycroft’s life, his father seemed… small; the presence that had always made him seem far larger than he was, was gone. Mycroft wasn't sure how he felt about it either, not just the fact of his death but the manner of it. He glanced across the body, across the bodies - plural, though he didn't know the other two yet - to see the fourth occupant of the room.

His uncle looked almost unbearably fragile; the tall frame folded in on itself as he sat on a rickety folding chair in the corner of the cellar. Oddly, seeing the man so vulnerable actually hurt more than seeing his father dead, and for the first time in a very long time, Mycroft actually had no idea what to say.

He'd known the moment it had happened, of course, had abandoned a meeting with the American Ambassador because of it, leaving the man huffing in disgust. It didn't matter; he'd be out of a job within a month as soon as his affair with his barely of age step-daughter came to light in the press, sooner if the man tried to make an issue of this with Mycroft.

It had taken only a few short hours to make his way from London to this damp, chilly cellar in a small village outside of Bordeaux. He'd not even bothered to gather his usual cadre of bodyguards; only Anthea had accompanied him and she was outside with orders to shoot anyone who looked like they were even thinking of trying to come in - this was family only. In the unlikely event that Anthea was unable to dissuade any interlopers, Mycroft thought he might actually be inclined to deal with them personally. In a distant sort of way, he was almost hoping someone would.

He stepped around the slab on which his father lay and circled the other two. He didn't know them, not personally, but he knew enough to make an educated guess, even so, he found he would rather ask. 

"And these are...?" the sound of his own voice surprised him, it seemed that dispassionate had become his fallback tone.

"My brothers," his uncle said softly, his voice slightly hoarse, "all my brothers." 

Mycroft nodded, looking again at the family he hadn't known existed in anything more than an abstract sense. He could gather a great deal of information merely from their appearance, but he had always taken more from expression and tone; Sherlock was the one who specialised in the dead. He wondered for a moment how his brother was taking this; he was sure Sherlock knew as well as he did, even the drugs couldn't blunt this, but when he reached out his brother's mind was closed to him. Sherlock’s selfishness rarely surprised him, but this time it cut deeply.

"You're angry," his uncle said softly and Mycroft glanced over at him, suddenly horribly surprised to realise it was true. Not just angry, but absolutely furious - at his brother, his father, his uncle, the whole _fucking_ world. The temper he'd worked so hard all his life to control had crept up on him unawares while he was distracted and the realisation of the lapse in his self-control only doubled its roar. For a moment Mycroft was so furious he could barely see. He hardly noticed the sound of the tiles on the walls cracking like gunshots in the enclosed space.

"Sir!" Anthea appeared, gun in hand and ready, scanning the room for a threat that wasn't there. 

"Get out," he ordered flatly, holding his temper in check with an effort he’d not had to make in years, and with another quick glance around, she did. She would be invaluable that one, already more than capable and she'd only been his a month; young but she had considerable potential, not least the ability to follow orders. He wondered for a moment what she had made of the scene before her, before dismissing it as irrelevant.

Mycroft dragged his focus back and watched as his uncle slowly unfolded himself from the chair, looking like he could feel every day of every year he'd ever lived and it was just wrong. For a sudden blinding moment Mycroft wanted a fight, wanted to feel blood and bone beneath his hands, the awful visceral pleasure of violence. 

His uncle turned his head then, looking at him tiredly, "Go ahead," he said softly.

Mycroft shook his head once, abruptly, but it didn't lessen the urge. A bitter laugh brought his head up to see his uncle watching him and the green eyes were dark. Mycroft flexed his fingers, feeling how stiff they were from the tension that had clenched his fists all unknowing. The air was thick with power, unused but ready, but he was not a slave to his temper anymore and he knew enough to recognise grief whatever form it wore. His uncle was watching him again, but Mycroft turned away from eyes that had always been able to see right through him, even when no-one else could.

"Ah, Mycroft," his uncle's voice was warm and it curled around him in a way he hadn't felt since he'd been a child, scared of nightmares and lashing out in his terror. “You are so very much your father’s son,” and there was a soft darkness in that voice, sadness and love and more, that made him shiver. Then his uncle straightened to his proper height, not so very far from Mycroft's own, and his dark eyes hardened. "I didn't hold the sword, but I guided the hand," he said, his voice still soft, but the words were bitter and sharp and they stung like wasps.

Before he was even aware he was doing it, Mycroft had advanced on his uncle, one hand wrapping around his throat as he backed him hard into the wall. Power beat at his back like the heat from a furnace and for a moment he wanted to burn, wanted _everything_ to burn. He met green eyes even he could not always read and he _pushed_. There was only a token resistance and at any other time he would have thought about what that meant, but not now. In the space between breaths he took what was his; every image, every word, every emotion. He saw it all, heard it all, felt it all and it _hurt_.

Mycroft was on his knees when he found his breath again and it would have bothered him at any other time. Instead, he blinked the blurriness from his vision and looked over at his uncle. He'd slid down the wall to sit at its base, his face in his hands and his breathing ragged, judging by the way his shoulders shook.

"I..." his throat was raw and he had to swallow several times before he was confident he could say what he needed to. "You didn't do it," he managed, forcing himself to swallow again when his dry throat made his breath click. He reached out a hand and curled it around his uncle's narrow wrist, pulling the hand from his face. His uncle let the cover go, but tilted his head back, closing his eyes and effectively hiding once again. Mycroft growled in frustration, "It was consequences. You showed _me_. Father didn't listen, wouldn’t _see_." Because he had loved his father as fiercely as he did the rest of his small family, but it had never made him blind to their faults and his father’s had been many, single-mindedness really the least of them.

His uncle still wouldn’t look at him, but Mycroft supposed it didn’t matter; for once he’d seen the morass of emotion that lay behind those eyes and had Mycroft been anyone but who he was, he thought he would have been afraid, but he wasn’t, never would be, because he knew exactly how it felt.

Mycroft sat back, trying to calm his breathing; the anger was gone now, drowned in grief, but the urge to hurt was still strong, fluttering in his chest like a razor-winged butterfly. The need to exorcise his pain by carving it into another was an old one; he flexed his hands against the concrete floor, feeling the power extend from his fingertips to gouge neat lines in the damp concrete. There was a strong temptation to find the Scot, but it would serve no real purpose, still he'd keep an eye on him, just in case. In the meantime, he'd have Anthea book him an appointment at the Club for his return; there were always plenty of willing recipients there for his personal brand of pain. He heard the scuff of shoes and the rustle of fabric and looked up to see his uncle, standing alone amidst his brothers, but no longer quite as forlorn as he had been.

"Methos," the name was strange on his tongue, foreign and familiar at once, a name none of his observations could ever have deduced, but it felt right to use it now, he had been given that right, inherited it, his father’s right. He had his father’s true name too, but now was not the time to speak it, not yet. He climbed to his feet and his uncle turned to look at him, "Father was a great man," Mycroft offered, trying the words out loud, now that he knew exactly how true they were.

"He was," his uncle’s agreement held a trace of wistfulness that Mycroft wondered if he would have detected before today, “But not a good one”.

“I am not my father,” because it needed to be said as much for himself as for his uncle.

“No,” and there was something in Methos’ tone that was almost like pride.

"I will be better," statement of fact or statement of intention, even Mycroft wasn’t entirely sure, just certain that he meant it.

And finally a smile ghosted across his uncle’s thin lips, "Your father would be very disappointed if you were not."

Mycroft nodded, once, and wasn’t entirely surprised when his uncle’s hand came up to rest on his shoulder, the warmth of the touch disproportionate to the gesture. Pride, affection and to his surprise, humour was clear in his uncle’s expression; the grief wasn’t gone, but it had lessened in the sharing, “Just try not to start as many wars in the process as he did.”

FIN


End file.
